Tracy McKenzie, Ph.D.

History Department

Professor of History, Department Chair
On Faculty since 2010

Education

Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 1988

M.A., Vanderbilt University, 1984

B.A., University of Tennessee, 1982

About Tracy McKenzie

Tracy McKenzie joined the History Department in the fall of 2010 after twenty-two years on the faculty of the University of Washington, where he held the Donald W. Logan Endowed Chair in American History. For most of his professional career, his research has focused on the effects of the American Civil War on the economy and society of the Upper South. His first book, One South or Many? Plantation Belt and Upcountry in Civil War-Era Tennessee (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), investigated the economic effects of war and emancipation on the southern countryside, and received best-book awards from the Agricultural History Society and the American Historical Association-Pacific Coast Branch. His next monograph was Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Recipient of the annual Fletcher Pratt Literary Award for best non-fiction work on the Civil War, Lincolnites and Rebels explored the civil war within the Civil War by tracing the experience of a single community split asunder by the sectional crisis.

More recently, Professor McKenzie has turned his attention to the ways in which American evangelicals have remembered their national heritage; toward that end, he has recently written a book on memory of the “First Thanksgiving.” The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us about Loving God and Learning from History was published in October, 2013 by Intervarsity Press.

Professor McKenzie is married to his best friend of twenty-eight years, Robyn. He and Robyn have three children: Callie, who is a senior at Wheaton; Margaret, who is a junior also at Wheaton; and Robert, who is in the twelfth grade. His favorite movie is Chariots of Fire followed by Father of theBride. He has two favorite books: The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger—the former for how it makes him think and the latter for how it thrills his heart. In his spare time, he enjoys playing ping-pong and golf with his son; meeting his daughters for coffee; watching HerculePoirot and The Andy Griffith Show; doing crossword puzzles; and eating.

Professor McKenzie blogs about Christian faith and American History and you can follow his reflections here.